Day Twenty-Four Consecration to Mary for the 21st Century/A Lenten Journey

Day Twenty-Four Consecration to Mary for the 21st Century/A Lenten Journey     

                                                                     Day Twenty-Four

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Prayers for this week, Days 23-28 in Lent:

Begin each day with "My Mother, my hope."

First Meditation

Remember on Day 4, the Saturday after Ash Wednesday, I asked you to save your money for a scapular, a medal, or a crucifix.  Today I want you to go window shopping.  Go to a religious store, or online, and see how much a brown scapular of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel cost.  You can get them for free, sometimes, but it shouldn't costs more than $ 10.  If you have the money, buy it.  If you don't have the money, start saving for it.  Also look around at miraculous medals and crucifix.  Now you see how much money you have to save to purchase one.

Second Meditation

It is the customary tradition to ask a priesst to bless your scapular.  This elevates this religious object to a "sacramental."  You will be blessed to wear it, but let's not wear it until you have finished the consecration.  Meditate upon the story behind the scapular.

Our Lady once said to St. Dominic: "One day, through the Rosary and the Scapular, I will save the world."  At Fatima, in 1917, when Our Lady made her final apparition on October 13, she was seen clothed in the habit of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  The seer, Lucy said, "The Rosary and the Scapular are inseparable!"  

Third Meditation

Meditate upon the history of the Brown Scapular.

Like many holy legends, the Brown Scapular, to be understood properly, has to be seen in the light of its historical setting.  Since the beginning of monasticism, a Scapular, consisting of two pieces of cloth joined at the shoulders and hanging down back and breast, has been part of a monastic habit.  A monk or friar would rise each morning and put on his scapular to remind himself that he was putting on the yoke of Jesus.  In the middle of the thirteenth century, the Superior General of the Carmelite order, Simon Stock entreated Our Lady for special patronage.  In answer to his prayers, she appeared to him and gave him the Scapular of his Order.  She said "This shall be a sign to you and to all Carmelites: whosoever dies wearing this shall not suffer eternal fire."  The Promise Mary attached to the Scapular went far beyond Simon's expectations.  It saved his Order, confirmed Mary's patronage.

End the day with the prayer, "We fly to thy patronage, O Holy Mother of God; despice not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Amen"

End your day with an examination of conscience--even in bed.

 

What good did I do today?

Where did I fail?

How can I do better?

The histories related in the Second and Third Meditation are my own interpretations of pages 243-246 in St. Louis de Monftort's True Devotion Consecration to Mary.